ProSoundWeb Community

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  
Pages: [1] 2 3 ... 6   Go Down

Author Topic: LabSub vs. Tuba36/Tuba36Slim  (Read 22379 times)

Sam Jayaraj

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 10
LabSub vs. Tuba36/Tuba36Slim
« on: May 14, 2005, 02:37:38 AM »

I am about to complete building 4 Nos. Tuba24 Subs loaded with the HL10 drivers.  This is meant for indoor party use.

Now I want to built 4 or 6 Nos. of roadworthy subs.  Which is better? Labsubs or Tuba36Slim for maximum spl and extension to atleast 32Hz?

Thanks in advance,
Logged
Sam

Matt Loretitsch

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 136
Re: LabSub vs. Tuba36/Tuba36Slim
« Reply #1 on: May 14, 2005, 09:33:10 AM »

This will be a sore subject.... remember.. you get what you pay for and there's no free lunch.  What's your app?

    The lab subs are tougher to build and heavier for a reason.  Higher ouput, lower extension.  Both of them need to be in groups of two or more to perform.  The LAB is more proven by years of experience currently.  

    If you decide on the 36slims make sure you use the Magnum 15LF Bill recommends.  It's well made and will give you good output with 1.5kw to each driver.

For a small beans guy like myself the 36S is a good box.  I have to deal with stairs several times a year and the labs would be killer to move up a flight or two.

-Matt
Logged

Michael_Elliston¶

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 261
    • http://www.geocities.com/xobt
Re: LabSub vs. Tuba36/Tuba36Slim
« Reply #2 on: May 15, 2005, 12:21:54 AM »

Its a harder issue too because the graphs available of the tubas are measured differently to the labhorn.



http://homepages.paradise.net.nz/sbk1/ssi.htm
Logged

Sam Jayaraj

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 10
Re: LabSub vs. Tuba36/Tuba36Slim
« Reply #3 on: May 16, 2005, 06:47:25 AM »

 8)I think the vote is in favour of the LabSub as opposed to the Tuba36Slim.  I will go for the Labs.  Yes, it is tougher to build and heavier, but it will be worth it.

I built the Tuba24; this morning I completed one box and loaded it with an HL10A driver.  Tested with some music.  It does not go deep (only one box, as of now, and three more are in the course of completion), but it is really impressive for its size.  I guess the Tuba36 must have the same family sound.

One more question:  Apart from maximum SPL, which of the two, LabSubs or Tuba36Slim will have a longer throw?

Thanks,
Logged
Sam

David Trotter

  • Jr. Member
  • **
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 66
Re: LabSub vs. Tuba36/Tuba36Slim
« Reply #4 on: May 16, 2005, 07:02:06 AM »

The lab will have a longer throw. It's generally a better design than the Tuba 36. Read up on the old Tom Danley posts will get you more familliar with why its soo good. We have 4 and they piss over anything else i've heard.  

I was planning on building a few Tuba 24's too for smaller things. Few questions:
You recon they outperform a simmilar sized 15" reflex box?
How low do they actually go and how clean is the sound?
How hard are they to put together?
How much power do they realistically handle (i was thinking 500w)?

Let us know how all 4 sound eh!?

ta

-dave
Logged

cmqt9

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 8
Re: LabSub vs. Tuba36/Tuba36Slim
« Reply #5 on: May 16, 2005, 12:04:49 PM »

"Better" is a subjective opinion, barring side by side comparison, and I haven't yet seen a documented case of anyone doing so. But from a theoretical standpoint if the T36 is built with a 26 inch wide mouth it will have the same mouth area as the Lab, and therefore the same potential extension and sensitivity, while the box would still be 5 cubic feet smaller than the Lab. The T36 horn path at 8.5 feet supports full horn loading to 33 Hz, so the additional path length of the Lab is not of benefit since your desire is to go to 32 Hz. Below the flare frequency the T36 operates in direct radiator mode, the Lab doesn't, so the T36 extends deeper when only a few boxes are used. The T36 can be built using a variety of drivers, either 12 or 15 inch, either one or two, while the Lab is driver specific to one model that has had some problems. As for throw, with the same approximate mouth area there is no reason for either one of the other to have an advantage. The only theoretical advantage for the Lab is extension below 20 Hz and then only if at least 8 cabs are clustered to get the necessary mouth area.

The graphs I've seen of the T36 slim show half-space 1m/1w response. Graphs I've seen of the Lab also show half-space 1m/1w response, and they aren't a whole lot different. McBean sims of the two also show the same thing. The two designs are definetely different, but the jury is still out on which, if either, is better.  
Logged

Mac Kerr

  • SR Forums
  • Hero Member
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 10223
Re: LabSub vs. Tuba36/Tuba36Slim
« Reply #6 on: May 16, 2005, 01:41:05 PM »

cred_audio wrote on Mon, 16 May 2005 06:47

One more question:  Apart from maximum SPL, which of the two, LabSubs or Tuba36Slim will have a longer throw?

Thanks
The whole question of "long throw" subs puzzled me for a long time. Since the output of both front loaded and horn type subs is essentially omnidirectional I could not understand how a horn sub might be considered "long throw". Last year I got an answer from Dave Gunness of EAW who designed the KF940 ( as well as much of the rest of their line). Here is a quote from the EAW site where Dave responded:
Dave Gunness wrote on the EAW site

A "long throw" speaker is normally considered to be a high-directivity speaker.  Vertically, because it projects a tight beam, you're able to "throw" the sound over the heads of the nearest listeners without killing them with SPL.  Horizontally, it sends less energy into the sidewalls of the room - so the reverb picks up more slowly as you walk toward the back.

When it comes to floor-stacked subs, neither of these effects apply.  All of the listeners are in the direct path of the subs, so there is no throwing it over their heads.  Also, all subs have wide patterns, and nearly all rooms have relatively long reverb times at low frequencies - so the effect of low frequency directivity on the distribution of reverb in a room is usually insignificant.

What is important is the area of the wavefront where it exits the box.  In order to squeeze 100 acoustic Watts out of an 18-inch woofer, the sound pressure has to be extremely high at the surface of the woofer.  If the same 100 acoustic Watts comes through a 3-foot by 3-foot horn mouth, the sound pressure will be much, much lower at the mouth (nearly 10 dB less). A hundred Watts is a hundred Watts, so at 50 feet, both systems will produce the same SPL.  

The difference then, is that for a given SPL at distance, the SPL down close to the speakers is much lower for the horn than it is for the direct radiator.  That means the horn produces less SPL variation from near to far - than the direct radiator does. Some people would call that "throw".  Incidentally, this form of "throw" works the same indoors as it does outdoors.

David Gunness
This explanation would imply that the apparent throw of a sub array is directly related to the array mouth area. Based on this the LabSub and Tuba should have the same throw for the same mouth area of the array.

Mac

Logged

bgavin (Bruce Gavin)

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 266
Re: LabSub vs. Tuba36/Tuba36Slim
« Reply #7 on: May 17, 2005, 07:35:24 AM »

cred_audio wrote on Mon, 16 May 2005 03:47

 8)I built the Tuba24; this morning I completed one box and loaded it with an HL10A driver.  Tested with some music.  It does not go deep

The Tuba24 is not intended for music (deep), but for pro-sound reinforcment (loud).

The horn length of the Tuba24 is approximately 5 feet, making the horn cutoff point (Fc) at 56 Hz.  Below this, the box operates as a bandpass device.  Mouth area is 3.67 square feet, which only provides full horn loading to 62 Hz in half-space (on the ground).  A pair of Tuba24 on the ground is sufficient mouth area to reach Fc with full horn loading.

More than a pair of Tuba24 will provide a larger mouth area, but this is pointless with an Fc of 56Hz.  The horn won't go lower than this, no matter how much the mouth area is increased.  It will get louder, though.

The Tuba36 Slim at 7.5 feet has an Fc of 37 Hz.  The horizontal baffle model offers higher SPL, but does not extend as deep as does the vertical baffle Slim.  Neither has the low extension of the LAB sub, with its longer air column.  All require suffcient mouth area to achieve Fc with full loading.  At 37 Hz, this is 37 square feet in half-space.
Logged

Elliot Thompson

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1573
Re: LabSub vs. Tuba36/Tuba36Slim
« Reply #8 on: May 17, 2005, 08:00:16 AM »

bgavin wrote on Tue, 17 May 2005 12:35



The Tuba36 Slim at 7.5 feet.......




Thats intresting. I assumed it was more than 7.5 feet.

Thats .5 more of a Scoop. JBL's Scoop. Or are you refering
to internal chamber the 15 sits in?

Best Regards,

Logged
Elliot

Tom Danley

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 500
Re: LabSub vs. Tuba36/Tuba36Slim
« Reply #9 on: May 17, 2005, 01:26:47 PM »

Hi CMQT9

Fortunately, one does not have to depend on subjectivity to evaluate a design if one has sufficient modeling capacity.  It is cool that there are free ware horn simulators out now but they do not tell all.
I normally consider a few additional things aside from 2.83 Volt sensitivity when I design something as I did with the LAB sub.
For example, how loud (what percentage of max power) can it go at the point of reaching Xmax?  What is the ratio of power in to power dissipated in the VC?
I guess the point is the LAB sub was also designed to play very loudly and cleanly, while the T36 has not been tested in a side by side, some others have been and measured at the same time. If you want more to base your opinion of the LAB sub on, look up the sub shoot out that took place in Michigan.

You mention the drivers, it was necessary to get this level of performance to have a specific driver made to specifications. Yes there were some with a glue problem in the beginning but failures now only happen well past the power levels I suggested and these have proven (by track record) to be very beefy.
So far as an advantage to the LAB sub over the T36, it would mainly be that the LAB sub can go much louder down low before reaching the limits of the driver.
It was built for a different purpose (large scale Live sound) to be used in groups of two or more and in a size and low cutoff picked by the group. Part of the intention was to give (for free) the DIY’r a design for something really powerful that they wouldn’t normally have access to. The thought of a home built LAB’s being compared to any of the Big companies products was also part of the fun you see.
Cheers,

Tom Danley



Logged
Pages: [1] 2 3 ... 6   Go Up
 

Site Hosted By Ashdown Technologies, Inc.

Page created in 0.042 seconds with 18 queries.